July!

In July my friends from back home came out to Iowa to visit family. While they were here we were able to meet up at the zoo. It's so weird getting together with people you went to school with but now you're all adults and have kids! It was a fun time.


One day Dan discovered a nest of baby bunnies under Tyler's picnic table. We had a fun time watching them. Every time we went outside after that, Tyler always had to run over and see if he could see them.

Tyler go to experience his first fireworks in July. I think he liked them but I also think he thought they were too loud.

This is Tyler being "normal" at the 4th of July party.

Some friendly competition between brothers.

June!

I haven't forgotten about updating the blog month by month. We had a slight setback when our old computer got fried by lightning and we've been slightly busy with selling our house, buying a new house, and starting preschool. I'm ready for things to calm down!

Looking through the June pictures it seems like it was a slow month. The first three pictures are from the Better Homes and Gardens test garden that is in downtown Des Moines. Sometimes it is open to the public so Tyler and I went down there and had some lunch with some friends.

The next pictures are from a race (the Indy Corn 250) that Dan won some tickets to from work. He went with his co-worker (I declined to go with him) and it worked out well for me because it was on Father's Day so it was a great present for him that required no money and no shopping for me! Aren't I thoughtful?

First day of preschool

Tyler did great with me dropping him off today. He didn't seem overwhelmed or sad at all. Made it easier for me! I am looking forward to picking him up later and seeing what he thought of the whole thing. I'm not sure if he realizes he'll be doing this for many more Tuesdays and Thursdays. =)

Baby Boy

We found out yesterday that Tyler is going to have a little brother! Below are some pictures we got from yesterday. I am sparing future humiliation by not posting the one showing it to be a boy. =) By the way, we have decided to name him Lightning McQueen.

Arms!

Skinny little leg!

Profile!

May!

Okay, now we're up to May. In May we went on a week long vacation to St. Petersburg, FL. It was just the three of us on a family vacation. We had a condo that was right across the street from the beach. It was in a great location. Our plan for the week was to go the beach a lot and then take a trip to Busch Gardens in Tampa.

Tyler and Dan on the plane. The last time Tyler flew he was 18 months old, so this was more exciting to him. The excitement didn't last too long though, which is why God made portable DVD players.

Tyler wasn't too excited about the water. He was way more interested in the sand. He played in the sand for hours.

Dan with some bird friends.

Tyler and I after a visit to the St. Petersburg aquarium, located in the oddly shaped building behind us (way out on the pier).

After much consideration, we decided to go to Busch Gardens instead of Disney (we flew in to Orlando which was a couple hours away from St. Petersburg). I am very glad we did that. We were close and able to do it all in a day. Plus, they had just opened up a Sesame Street section that was perfect for Tyler. He absolutely loved the rides and had no fear about them. He's just like his mommy and daddy! It will be fun when he is older and we can take him on the big rides. Although, at that point he probably won't want to hang out with mom and dad anymore!

The very first thing he did was ride the roller coaster. Even though it was a short ride, I was surprised at the speed and steep banking turns. He went on it with Dan first and then came running off of it saying, "Again! Again!" Luckily, it was not crowded so we were able to do it multiple times.

Riding the carousel with daddy.

He seemed excited about this ride until it started it moving. Then you could tell he thought it was pretty lame. I mean, after riding a roller coaster this thing was for babies! =)

This was the first ride he went on where he was by himself. I expected tears but he didn't seem to care at all. In fact, he had quite a serious expression on his face while driving. I think he didn't want to be a distracted driver (and I suspect he wished it went faster). Doesn't he look like such a big boy "driving" that car?

Dan and another friend of his.

Tyler riding his motorcycle.

That's it for Florida pictures. Later in the month we took Tyler to his first minor league baseball game in Des Moines. I'm glad I got this cute picture because he was not a fun kid for most of the game and we ended up leaving early, vowing to never leave the house with him again.

Remember us?

You may not remember us. We're Dan and Megan. I know we've been MIA for quite awhile, but we did not forget about our little blog here. I finally transferred pictures from the camera to the computer and we have so many that I will have to do many posts to get us caught up to July. I might do it month by month.

First up is April! April is one of the best months. It is the month I was born in, and this year it was the month that we found out we're expecting baby #2 in December! On July 30th we will have an ultrasound and find out the sex of the baby! Tyler seems excited about being a big brother but I'm 99% sure he does not grasp the concept. He sure will come December!

So, heading back to April of this year, many things happened. First up is Easter!

Here is Tyler hunting for eggs.

In his cute little Easter outfit! I don't know why the sweater was so long. I'm hoping it means we can get another year out of it though!

Dan and I went to a Casting Crowns concert with some friends. Casting Crowns is probably my favorite Christian group. The concert was awesome! It was a fun night out.

Here we are looking cute.

The opening band was 10th Avenue North which is another band I like.

Casting Crowns

We finally visited the Science Center with Grandma and Grandpa. It was okay. Tyler seemed to enjoy most of it.

Tyler racing some tennis balls.

Petting a snake. Tyler refused to do it at first but once he saw all the other kids doing it, he had to do it too.

Look what we did! Not only can we count, but we can build an arch too!

Coming soon....a post for May that includes pictures from our trip to Florida!

Catching up

Last month we toured a fire station with MOMS Club. Tyler was more into it this time than he was a year ago. Last year it wasn't until the end when he decided to finally climb up in the firetruck. This year I had to pull him off of every truck we saw. Here he is on one of the trucks.

We also took Tyler bowling for the first time. Daddy helped push the ball down each time. Tyler had fun and I look forward to taking him again. (If you look above Tyler's head you can see his green bowling ball almost at the pins)

This is blurry but it shows his first spare!

Today we had a MOMS Club activity at the grocery store. We learned about reading labels on food and then we made three kid friendly, healthy snacks. The first two involved vegetables, so I ate those. The last one involved a banana though so Tyler was willing to eat that! I should say that he did try the celery but didn't like it. He refused to touch the cucumber.

Here he is proudly showing off his banana caterpillar. (the banana was cut into pieces and then stuck back together with peanut butter. then we added pretzel sticks for legs and stuck two raisins on for eyes. You can also see the big glob of peanut butter we had leftover that we both licked up. we love our peanut butter!)

ABC's

Wanted to share

I've been seeing this post passed around the internet for a couple days now. I finally got around to reading it and I love it. What she says about happiness is so true. Please read it if you get a chance!

Snow, snow, go away!

I understand that by living in Iowa I should not be surprised by snow in the winter. But this is getting ridiculous. Every time it snows it is large amounts and then followed by blowing. Things are constantly getting cancelled and Tyler and I are really getting a chance to "bond". Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.

Being stuck inside has given me a renewed interest in his home preschooling (which got done for two weeks in September and then never again). We were back at it last week and we did a lesson on Noah. This involved filling a sink with water and testing objects from around the house to see if they would sink or float. The idea was to show how God told Noah how to build the ark just right so that it would float in the water. Well, Tyler absolutely loved this and it has now become something fun he can do on his own!

The other day we managed to get out to the library to see Clifford. If you remember from last year, we stood in a long line to see Clifford and Tyler got scared and did not want to touch him. Since then he has been scared of other characters and didn't even want daddy to touch Curious George at the zoo.

This time he was much different! I so wish I would've taken a picture of his face when Clifford came in the room. He sat up on his knees and pointed while his mouth hung open in excitement. Then we stood in line, again, but this time it ended much differently! It was so exciting to see him react this way.

Lisle has been doing funny things lately. Here he decided to climb into a bag of tissue paper to hang out. Can you find the cat in the bag?

And here is another picture of Lisle showing his cuddly side. I love how his arm is around Libby and then his head is buried into her. I also love Libby's look, like she's just putting up with this because she likes him.

Sledding

A couple weekends ago we took Tyler sledding for the first time. We headed to the capitol building because I had heard there was a fun hill. When we got there the snow was so compacted that it acted more like ice and the drop appeared to be straight down. There were also a series of bumps along the way (retaining walls maybe?). I was a little nervous and Tyler seemed like he was going to refuse to go down. We sent Dan down first and he sped his way down and about flew out of the sled over every bump. Luckily it was a very hilly place so we chose a more tame hill. Tyler still wasn't very into it...not like I thought he would be.

Here is Dan pulling Tyler back up the hill. As you can see, we had a nice view of the Des Moines skyline.

Tyler sitting in the sled

Tyler looking cute

Tyler decided he would rather slide down on his bottom.

I wanted to get an action shot of Dan sliding down. His idea of that was to aim the sled right for me and I had to jump out of the way.

I didn't appreciate that, but then he ended up like this, so I didn't mind as much.

A view of the Capitol Building from where we were.

Here is a random picture of Lisle. I thought this was so cute how he was cuddling up to Dan's arm and even wrapped his paw around it. Lisle is our mean cat so this was too much cuteness for me.